Principal Software Engineer

JOB SUMMARY

We are seeking a visionary Principal Software Engineer responsible for building scalable public-facing software applications across Digital Member Experience channels. As a key player within a mobile application agile engineering team you will design and deliver scalable, enterprise-grade digital applications. In this role, you will take an end-to-end architectural view of our platforms—spanning from client experiences and API gateways to backend services, data stores, and event pipelines.

You will own the complete software development lifecycle, collaborating closely with stakeholders from ideation and business analysis to technical execution. A critical focus of this role is ensuring the secure handling of Protected Health Information (PHI), establishing robust protocols for authorization, consent gating, encryption, audit logging, and compliance.

As a technical expert, you will define service topologies, drive complex vendor migrations, lead partner integrations, and set measurable non-functional requirements. Furthermore, you will bridge the gap between technical execution and business strategy by authoring Architecture Decision Records (ADRs) and presenting strategic solutions to senior leadership, architecture reviews, and security teams.

ESSENTIAL RESPONSIBILITIES

• Lead the resolution of a variety of technical and business problems ensuring proper scalability, performance, maintainability, security, and robustness
• Responsible for idea generation, exploring and implementing appropriate technical solutions to achieve the required product features, as well as monitoring technical process against project plan while safeguarding functionality, scalability and performance.
• Explore new technologies and architectural concepts in order to ensure our products are using cutting-edge solutions.
• Participate in high-level development estimations to help ensure roadmap execution is on target.
• Present solutions and ideas to team members and management to drive technical solutions and implementations.
• Mentor and provide leadership to other software engineers as needed
• Other duties as assigned or requested.

EDUCATION
Required

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering or closely related field

Preferred

• Master's Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering or related field

EXPERIENCE

Required

• 9 years of proficiency in design and analysis of algorithms, data structures, and design patterns in the building and deploying of scalable; highly available systems

To Include:

• 9 years with at least two modern programming languages (Java, Python, JavaScript, ACE, IIB/ITX, Informatica preferred), and experience with at least three of the following: React, Angular v4+, NodeJS, NoSQL databases, HTML5, CSS, Google Cloud Platform or Amazon Web Services.
• 9 years in understanding of web services technologies such as REST, HTTPS, JSON
• 9 years with two or more general purpose programming languages including but not limited to: Java, Python (Django/Flask),  C/C++, C#, Objective C, JavaScript, or Go
• 9 years of defining system architectures and exploring technical feasibility trade-offs for optimizing short term execution while planning for long term technical capabilities
• 9 years producing code that is fault-tolerant, efficient, and maintainable

Preferred

• 9 years working with a variety of technology systems, designing solutions or developing applications in healthcare

To Include:

• 9 years of translating design mockups, prototypes and user stories into working applications
• 3 years of working with Natural Language Understanding, Deep Neural Networks and related fields
• Own architecture for one or more platform domains end to end, from the client experience through the API gateway, backend service, data store, and event pipeline.
• Designing and evolving the service topologies.
• Define how Protected Health Information moves through the system, including authorization and consent gating, minimum necessary data shaping, redaction and classification, audit logging, and encryption and key management.
• Set and defend non-functional requirements as measurable engineering targets and drive services that miss them back into compliance. 
• Lead integration design against partner and vendor systems, including identity federation, file and API exchange patterns, webhook ingestion.
• Design migration paths off incumbent vendor platforms: parallel operation, traffic cutover, rollback plans, and data reconciliation.
• Write and maintain architecture decision records, service specifications, and interface contracts, and present them to engineering teams, architecture review, security, and senior leadership.

LICENSES or CERTIFICATIONS

Required

• None

Preferred

• Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect, Professional Cloud Developer, or Professional Cloud Security Engineer.

SKILLS

• Demonstrated ability to achieve stretch goals in a highly innovative and fast paced environment
• Have experience working with agile methodology of scrum
• Interest and ability to learn other programming languages as needed Knowledge of professional software engineering practices & best practices for the full software development life cycle, including coding standards, unit testing, code reviews, source control management, build processes, testing, and operations
• Knowledge of professional software engineering practices & best practices for the full software development life cycle, including coding standards, unit testing, code reviews, source control management, build processes, testing, and operations
• Strong track record in designing and implementing large scale consumer facing applications

Additional Skills:

• Ability to think in terms of system boundaries and contracts, and to state clearly which component owns which responsibility and why.
• Ability to make and document architecture decisions under incomplete information, including trade-offs considered and alternatives rejected, and to revisit a decision when its premises change.
• Comfort operating in a hybrid technical estate where some systems are modern cloud-native services and others are long-lived enterprise platforms that cannot be replaced on your schedule.
• Security and privacy as a default engineering instinct: least privilege, defense in depth, data minimization, and the habit of asking where sensitive data ends up in logs, caches, analytics, and model context.
• Strong written communication.
• Ability to influence technical direction across team boundaries without direct authority, including with enterprise architecture, security, platform, and vendor partners.
• Effective use of AI-assisted development tooling, with sound judgment about where generated code requires human intervention.

Language (Other than English):

None

Travel Requirement:

0% - 25%

PHYSICAL, MENTAL DEMANDS and WORKING CONDITIONS

Position Type

Office-based

Teaches / trains others regularly

Frequently

Travel regularly from the office to various work sites or from site-to-site

Occasionally

Works primarily out-of-the office selling products/services (sales employees)

Never

Physical work site required

Yes

Lifting: up to 10 pounds

Constantly

Lifting: 10 to 25 pounds

Rarely

Lifting: 25 to 50 pounds

Never

Disclaimer: The job description has been designed to indicate the general nature and essential duties and responsibilities of work performed by employees within this job title. It may not contain a comprehensive inventory of all duties, responsibilities, and qualifications required of employees to do this job.
Compliance Requirement: This job adheres to the ethical and legal standards and behavioral expectations as set forth in the code of business conduct and company policies.
As a component of job responsibilities, employees may have access to covered information, cardholder data, or other confidential customer information that must be protected at all times.  In connection with this, all employees must comply with both the Health Insurance Portability Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) as described in the Notice of Privacy Practices and Privacy Policies and Procedures as well as all data security guidelines established within the Company’s Handbook of Privacy Policies and Practices and Information Security Policy. 
Furthermore, it is every employee’s responsibility to comply with the company’s Code of Business Conduct. This includes but is not limited to adherence to applicable federal and state laws, rules, and regulations as well as company policies and training requirements.

Pay Range Minimum:

Pay Range Maximum:

Base pay is determined by a variety of factors including a candidate’s qualifications, experience, and expected contributions, as well as internal peer equity, market, and business considerations.  The displayed salary range does not reflect any geographic differential Highmark may apply for certain locations based upon comparative markets.

Highmark Health and its affiliates prohibit discrimination against qualified individuals based on their status as protected veterans or individuals with disabilities and prohibit discrimination against all individuals based on any category protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

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